How to Fly Free for Two Years

Want to learn how to fly free for two years? Follow the steps outlined in this post and you can enjoy free travel.

If you’re like me and love to travel, that’s probably why you’re reading this post. Flying can be expensive. The cost of flights is one reason why so many people can’t live out their vacation dreams. But you can say goodbye to expensive airfare with this simple travel hack and learn how totravel for free. Here’s how to fly free for two years.

The Secret to Two Years of Free Flights

You get two years of free flights to places like CancunPhoto courtesy of sara via Wiki

You can get two years of free flights with the Southwest Companion Pass. The Southwest Companion Pass lets someone fly with you for free for up to two years. The companion ticket is free, but, there are airport taxes and fees of about $10.

When you earn the Southwest Companion Pass it’s good for the year you earn it and until the end of the following year. So if you time it right, you can get two years of free flying for your companion. A companion can be anyone: your spouse, child, friend, or family member.

The Southwest Companion Pass is great for families. If you’re a family of four, each parent can get a Companion Pass and choose a child as their companion. That way the entire family travels for free.

Southwest flies to over 102 cities in the US, Mexico, and the Caribbean, including Cancun and Belize. And soon to Hawaii! So there are many places you can visit using your Southwest Companion Pass. And all those cheap airfare deals to Europe? Use your Companion Pass to get to one of those gateway cities.

How to Earn the Southwest Companion Pass

You earn a Southwest Companion Pass after getting 110,000 Southwest points in a calendar year.

Earn 110,000 Southwest Points in 1 Week

1. Apply for the Southwest Premier Card

The Southwest Premier card is a great card for international travel because it doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees.

The annual fee is $99. But each year you get a bonus of 6,000 Southwest points when you renew the card. So you can look at the annual fee as buying 6,000 points each year.

You can get 50,000 Southwest points after spending $2,000 in purchases within 3 months of opening your account on the Southwest Premier card.

Be sure to add your Southwest Rapid Rewards frequent flyer number on your application. Otherwise, they will issue you a new number.

After you’ve been approved, ask Chase to expedite sending the card to you. So that you can get the card in a few days.

Time to Complete: 5 to 15 minutes to apply

2. Apply for the Southwest Premier Business Card

The Southwest Premier Business card offers the same benefits as the personal Southwest Premier card. The only difference between the two cards is that one is designed for businesses while the other is for personal use.

You do not have to be incorporated to get a business card. You can get a business card as a sole proprietor if you’re self-employed or have a small business. Some examples of small businesses include selling on Etsy, eBay, selling Shakeology, etc.

After spending $2,000 in purchases within 3 months after opening your account you can get 50,000 Southwest points from the Southwest Premier Business card.

Remember to add the same Southwest number to your application that you used for the Southwest Premier personal card and ask Chase to expedite the card to you.

Time to Complete: 5 to 15 minutes to apply

3. Complete Minimum Spending

Complete minimum spending when you buy gift cards

You have to spend $2,000 in purchases on each card within 3 months to get the 50,000 points on each card.

Don’t get confused by your credit card statement. The annual fee does NOT count towards the $2,000 you have to spend.

Time to Complete: 5 to 60 minutes (varies on how you complete your spending)

Total: 104,000 points (50,000 points x 2 + 2,000 points x 2)

4. Transfer Points

Update: As of April 1, 2017, points transferred from hotel programs no longer count towards earning the Southwest Companion Pass.

You can earn an additional 6,000 points towards the Southwest Companion Pass by transferring points. Points from other programs can be transferred to Southwest and will count towards earning the Companion Pass.

B) You can transfer Hyatt hotel points to Southwest.

And when you transfer 50,000 Hyatt points to Southwest, you get a 6,000 point bonus. So 50,000 Hyatt points becomes 30,000 Southwest points. Keep this in mind for the future when it’s time to earn another Southwest Companion Pass. Or if you aren’t able to get that second Southwest credit card.

There you have it, you can earn the Southwest Companion Pass in one week (or less) and your companion can fly for two years for free.

Conclusion

One of the easiest travel hacks to travel for free is the Southwest Companion Pass.

The Southwest Companion Pass lets your companion fly for free for up to two years when they travel with you. The only cost is airport taxes and fees of about $10.

Because Southwest flies to over 90 cities in the US, Mexico, and the Caribbean including Cancun and Belize, you can use your Southwest Companion Pass for free travel.

If you earn your Companion Pass in January you’ll get two years of free travel. That’s because the Southwest Companion Pass is good for the entire year it’s earned AND through the end of the following year.

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Comments

Another option for one of the two cards is the Southwest Plus card. A little more tricky because you have to catch it on one of it’s 50K signup times (or find a referral on FlyerTalk). This is good if you don’t have a legitimate business to get the Premiere Business card under as Chase has made this a little more difficult in the last couple of years.

Working on this currently, one companion pass for me and one on my wife’s account ( 4 credit cards total), so we can fly the family of 4 for the price of 2. No, you won’t find the first class seats pictured in the article that I know of (unless Debbie has a secret hack for that), but a good deal for 2 years of flying.

Delta does. If you have an American Express Delta card. You don’t even have to have near that amount if points either. I get one every year and I continue to fly free. Usually I split the cost with a friend so they don’t have to pay so much. Delta is much better than Southwest too. They have had much better service, don’t have to check in to stand in line for a seat, usually on time (more so than my experience with Southwest)

And the beauty is that you can use those 110,000 points to “pay” for your flight. So you use points for your flight and your companion flies free and your total out of pocket is just airport taxes and fees.

I love the Southwest Companion Pass – such a fantastic perk, I really wish that more airlines would offer something similar. I’m currently a solo traveler so I haven’t been able to really take advantage of it yet, but I hope this perk is still around someday if I find myself with a partner.

We are always traveling I am surprised I had not heard of this program! I love finding ways to cut out costs down when we travel it can add up fast!! I did not know that Hyatt was partnered with Southwest like this as well.

I am definitely bookmarking this post because you offered some really helpful tips that I was not aware of! And since I am a travel bug I would love to start traveling for free! I did not even know about Southwest Airlines companion pass…and I use this airline a lot! Oh my! Anyway, thanks for sharing!

This is a really great travel hack for those in the US. If I lived there I’d probably take out those cards just to rack up those points so that my partner or son could travel for free with me. Airline tickets are so expensive so every little helps when it comes to being able to afford travel.

I love that they offer a companion pass. t would be easy to rack up the $2000 in 3 months. Just use it to pay any bills you normally would pay out of your bank account then pay it off with your bank account so you don’t have debt!

I have only flown Southwest and always had a good flight. Wait, I did fly Delta before too but the rates were much higher. I haven’t flown in quite some time, but it’s on my 2016 list! I want to hit the northeast soon!

Honestly, that is a total steal of a deal and with some savvy (like you’ve shown) you can really get to that 110K mark pretty easily. Now if Southwest would just fly from here, I’d be all set! I have to drive a couple hours to find them.

Wow this seems like it would be a great card to get, the benefits are absolutely amazing! I wish we had this airline in Canada- I don’t think we do but I will have to look and see if we could still benefit from it!

Hi, so do I have to use up the $2000 before they give the right to fly for free. When can I start flying? And can I cancel my yearly membership after the year is over?. Thanks so much for you help and sharing this nice tips.

My fiance and I did this all through college with American Airlines. Credit cards are definitely the fastest way to get free tickets! This is a great post for specific details though! We have a Southwest hub nearby so it might be worth investing in for us!

For a family of four with 2 Companion Passes, you can travel for free because you can use those 220,000 points (110,000 per parent) to pay for the parent’s flight and the children fly free as companions.

Thanks for the article; very compelling. Just one question/correction: Southwest site indicates they DO NOT accept transferred, gift-ed or bought points towards the 100K needed for the companion pass:

” Points purchased for personal use or as a gift, transferred points, points earned from program enrollment, Tier bonus points, flight bonus points, and Partner bonus points (with the exception of the Rapid Rewards Credit Cards from Chase) do not qualify as Companion Pass Qualifying Points.”

so it sounds like we need to earn the point thru flights or credit card use…

Where you referenced, they are referring to bonus points. For example, if you normally earn 500 points for renting a car, if Avis had a promotion that offered 1,000 points, only the first 500 would count towards the Companion Pass.

You can’t buy Southwest points to qualify for the pass. But you can buy hotel points and transfer those and earn the pass that way. 🙂

Do the Southwest Primier Card & the Business Card give you one point for every dollar spent on the cards? Do purchases you make with your cards at all grocery stores, gas stations, & restaurants count, or are there exclusive places you must patronize to earn points? We have several monthly bills paid automatically with our Am.Express card. Could we earn points if we paid these with the Southwest cards?

Could you explain how to get more than one southwest credit card? I have a SW CC currently and when I applied for the business card they refused me saying I already had a SW personal card. Also, they told me there is no such thing as “reapplying” after two years in order to get points….I think your information is misleading….

The Southwest Premier and Southwest Plus cards are different personal credit cards with different benefits and annual fees.

So if you currently have the Southwest Plus card, you can apply for the Southwest Premier card.

Of if you have the Southwest Premier card, you can apply for the Southwest Plus card.

In terms of getting a business card, you have to have a business. You can’t get a business card if you don’t have a business. So if you have a traditional business or have a untraditional business like a daycare or babysitting business, sell things on eBay or Etsy, etc. you can apply for a business card.

You can reapply for a new Southwest card 2 years (24 months after you received your sign-up bonus) if you have cancelled your card.

So with your current Southwest credit card, if you applied for and received the sign-up bonus 2 years (or 24 months) ago, then you could cancel your existing card and reapply for a new Southwest card and get the sign-up bonus again.

But a word of caution, Chase is getting stricter with people doing this. Because many people were doing this on a regular basis (every 2 years) and getting the sign-up bonus multiple times.

The SW companion ticket sounds like a fantastic way to fly, I had never heard of that one before, this is great. Thanks for sharing, it’s nice to know there are so many options for cutting down airline cost.

I’ve heard of this pass!! I wish they do something like this in the future. Right now, my husband is in the beginning of medical school so it’s not the best time for travel, but I do love the idea of it!

The Southwest Companion Pass sounds like something worth looking into for anyone. I will have to share this with my ex-husband who is my boyfriend so we can go to the Caribbean Island for our family vacation we haven’t had in years. I love that you can use the credit card points for the the companion pass too. Thanks for sharing the information. .

Thanks for the info! We have always driven to our family vacations so I have actually only been on a plane once before. However, it is on the agenda for this year. Now that we have been expanding our family it is getting harder and harder to deal with the children in the car and would be much easier just to fly!

So are they still offering this bump in points for signing up? I am not a big advocate for credit cards to earn points as many people are reckless with debt in the states and the temptation is to big. However, if you were disciplined, and worked this plan for 1-2 months, it would be worth the companion seat

I love the sound of this pass, though even if I put every single thing I purchased on the one credit card, I’m not sure I’d be able to get that many points in one year. It’s great for very frequent travellers and those who spend a lot on their cards though, love that it covers two travellers.

This is INSANE… And totally one of the best travel hacks Ive ever heard. In recent years I have been using points earned for cheaper flights and shopping and adventures, but honestly nothing as fantastic as this.

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